Understanding Creative Entrepreneurs’ Work Practices: The Varying Conversation between Artistic and Economic Rationales

Margot Leclair; Cédric Dalmasso

doi:10.37725/mgmt.2024.5277

Margot Leclair LEST, UMR 7317 CNRS, Aix Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France
Cédric Dalmasso Mines Paris – Université PSL, CGS – I3 – UMR CNRS 9217, Aix-en-Provence, France

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37725/mgmt.2024.5277

Keywords: Creative industries, creative entrepreneurship, artistic, economic, conversation

Abstract

Research on creative organizations often questions how artistic practices can be squared within the rational decision-making of economic thinking. This paper examines how the relational language, or conversation, between artistic and economic rationales unfolds for creative entrepreneurs. Through ethnographic work with a designer-entrepreneur, this paper presents a fine-grained analysis of the conversation the designer cultivates between artistic and economic rationales through work practices. We contribute to the literature about artistic and economic rationales at work, and more specifically to the concept of conversation. First, we show that high levels of conversing make way for low levels of conversing and vice versa. In the studio, the designer’s engagement with either rationale varies as the creative process progresses. Second, on a more global dynamic, we demonstrate the conversation is continuous. It relies on its variations, which ensure the balance between rationales in the long run. We also contribute to the field of creative entrepreneurship research. We identify here one type of creative entrepreneur, with what we call a ‘small is beautiful’ attitude. Far from the mythical figure of the entrepreneur, this unconventional entrepreneur aims for sustainable use of creative resources rather than growth at all costs.

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Author Biographies

Margot Leclair, LEST, UMR 7317 CNRS, Aix Marseille Université, Aix-en-Provence, France

Margot Leclair is assistant professor at Aix-Marseille University, where she is part of the Inciam-a multidisciplinary institute for creativity and innovation. She holds a PhD in organizational studies from Paris-Dauphine University, was a post-doctoral fellow at Mines ParisTech and at the Paris Fashion School by PSL. Interested by the behind the scenes of artistic and creative work, she mobilizes the ethnographic method during stays in creative studios. Her research interests include the aesthetic/affective economy of fashion and more generally creative industries, the production and politics of creativity, creative organizing, organizational aesthetics and interrelations between arts and management.

Cédric Dalmasso, Mines Paris – Université PSL, CGS – I3 – UMR CNRS 9217, Aix-en-Provence, France

Cédric Dalmasso is director of the Centre de gestion scientifique, Mines Paris – PSL. He is chairman of the scientific council of the Agence nationale pour l’amélioration des conditions de travail and an elected member of the board of directors of PSL University, chairman of the orientation council of the Institut du travail et du développement durable and a member of the Cercle de l’innovation at the Fondation Paris Dauphine. He has conducted over twenty collaborative research projects and is the author of numerous articles on the link between strategy, organization and health at work.

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